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Wilson Center Experts

Lea Shanley

Former Senior Program Associate

Science and Technology Innovation Program

Expertise:

Science and Technology

;

Crowdsourcing

;

Social Media

Lea Shanley founded and directed the Commons Lab within the Wilson Center's Science and Technology Innovation Program from 2011-2014. Trained as a geospatial data scientist and policy expert, her research has focused on improving government services and empowering communities through open and participatory innovation, new technologies and social media. While at the Wilson Center, Lea directed the production of 16 publications, contributed to seven external publications, and organized 24 roundtables and workshops on the social, legal, and ethical implications of crowdsourcing, including intellectual property, privacy, cybersecurity, and liability.

Lea is one of the chief organizers and co-founders of the Federal Community of Practice on Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science, a groundbreaking effort to enable federal agencies to engage the public in collective problem solving. She also helped to launch the new Citizen Science Association.

Previously, Lea conducted community-based participatory action research in geographic information science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This research engaged local and tribal communities in the development and use of GIS-based decision support systems, enabling collaborative decision-making for improved land use planning, natural resource management, coastal management, precision agriculture, and emergency management.

Related Content for this Expert

This briefing will highlight the key components of the National Plan for Civil Earth Observations, outline its impacts across Federal agencies involved in Earth observations, and review associated efforts to enable interagency coordination.

There is a clear trend of terrorist "migration" to online social media, including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. This new arena of open and social systems presents new challenges and requires dramatic shifts in strategic thinking regarding national security and countering terrorism.

Access to environmental information and its impact on environmental decision making will be explored, with special attention to the role of geographical information and geographical information systems and to citizen science.

Global Positioning Systems (GPS), the backbone of worldwide Position, Timing, and Navigation systems, is easily interfered with and active spoofing attacks have been demonstrated. This policy level talk, hosted by the Commons Lab of the Science and Technology Innovation Program, examines the cyber-security risks and their potential impact on the transportation, financial, and energy sectors.

This roundtable will connect federal agencies hoping to initiate or expand open innovation projects with leaders in citizen science, who are engaging the public participates in scientific research through lab and field work, crowdsourcing platforms, and online games. Opening remarks by Kumar Garg, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and keynote by Bob Perciasepe, EPA Deputy Administrator.

Please join us on October 4th, as we talk to the authors of two recently released reports that explore the use of social media and related technologies by emergency managers for disaster planning, response, and recovery in the United States and beyond.

On Monday, July 15, 2013, Secure World Foundation and the Commons Lab of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars will co-host a panel discussion, entitled "Earth Observation Satellite Data-Sharing: Policies and Partnerships." Please note, this event will be held at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace from 12 to 2 PM and requires an RSVP by Friday, July 12, 2013.

Pages

Published by the Commons Lab, "New Visions in Citizen Science" showcases seventeen case studies that offer a mosaic view of federally-sponsored citizen science and open innovation projects, from in-the-field data collection to online games for collective problem-solving. This report offers a sampling of different models that support public contribution, potential challenges, and positive impacts that projects can have on scientific literacy, research, management, and public policy.

Crisis mapping is an inter-disciplinary field that aggregates crowd-generated input data, such as social media feeds and photographs, with geographic data, to provide real-time, interactive information in support of disaster management and humanitarian relief. This article provides a brief overview of the emerging legal and ethical issues within crisis mapping.